She turned, giggling. “I didn’t exactly make that point eloquently—they aren’t an animal. Well, sometimes, they can be.” Her eyes twinkled. “Simo is the public speaker, not me. All I mean is I see the way he looks at you and the way you look at him. There is suspicion there but interest too.”

She headed toward the door. “No matter what happens, never hold grudges. Grudges are the worst things in life. No matter if that grudge is justified, it’s the poison that kills entire cities.”

Even if I could talk, I wouldn’t have known what to say to that.

Instead, I trailed behind her and returned to the man she said cared for me.

“Are you okay?”

Elder’s voice interrupted my daydreaming, wafting away Dina as if she were a whiff of incense. His exotic aftershave tantalized my nose, buying into the analogy.

I squinted at his height, vaguely making out the dragon tattoo on his chest beneath the white cotton wrapped around his torso.

He narrowed his eyes as if wondering where my mind had gone and dying to ask. But he wouldn’t. He knew by now he wouldn’t get an answer.

Pointing at my legs, he grumbled, “Are you tired? Do you hurt? Should I call for the car?”

I hadn’t even noticed the slight ache in my hips from walking after so long of being huddled in a ball. I didn’t feel the burn of a freshly formed blister from the slightly too big gold sandals—even the throb in my knees and tongue couldn’t steal what this day meant to me.

The only thing I did notice was how bright the sun was and how I’d stupidly left the hat I’d commandeered this morning in the restaurant.

Whoops.

Would he punish me for that? Would he even notice?

Today had started off terrifying with Elder stripping me in the lift. But it had ended in female company and sunshine, and he could never take that away from me. Whatever minor discomforts I suffered was nothing compared to the pricelessness of such an adventure.

However, the longer we were in public, the stronger Alrik hovered in my mind—his ghost doing its best to scare me by making me suspect the men walking close by. I jolted from raised voices and winced when shopkeepers raised their arm to tote their wares.

All mundane things but in them I saw a torturer, a scream, and abuse.

I was happy.

I was nervous.

It was a constant battle to stay in the moment.

But for the first time, I actually wanted to be present. Not in the future where I was safe with my mother and friends. Not in a police building about to inform the world of the QMB and begin the tirade on saving the women I’d been sold with.

I wanted to be here.

With Elder.

He huffed when I didn’t respond, growling with impatience. “Michaels gave me a report on your healing last night.” He glanced away, his attention landing on a young boy running across the street with a scruffy dog on a piece of string. “He said the stitches will begin to dissolve soon. That your tongue is well on its way to normalcy.”

I kept pace beside him, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He was right, though. The swelling receded every day, and the sharpness from the stitches was already beginning to soften. Although eating couscous at lunch today had been tricky. The tiny granules had escaped into my cheeks, and I didn’t have the dexterity to find them.

His voice darkened. “Once I know you’re healed, there won’t be any more excuses, Pim.”

I know.

“I want what I deserve. I need things from you.”

I know that, too.

“I’ve been more than fair—”

I skidded on a loose piece of gravel.

My arms flew out to catch my balance. My bruised bones bellowed against upcoming impact.

But I never fell.

One second, I was falling; the next, I was not.

As if we’d danced this dance before, Elder’s hands gripped my waist, his fingers digging protectively into me, keeping me upright.

The electricity when we’d first met licked like wildfire from him to me, crackling and spitting. Everything that’d happened on his yacht up until now was deleted. We were back to square one when he’d walked into the white mansion in his stain of black and demanded one night with me.

The penny he tried to give me for my thoughts.

The way his pinkie grazed mine.

The way his lips descended and his tongue captured and that damn kiss that ruined everything. All of it drugged us until we were lost.

I shivered as things inside me sprang awake. Things that weren’t just dormant but had never had the chance to bloom. Things a woman felt, not just a girl. Desire I’d only just sampled but now ricocheted through me like a rocket.

He sucked in a breath, his fingers pressing harder. Too hard. Not hard enough. Bruises tried to enlist a panic attack. Instinct tried to make me flee. But Elder…he was the anchor keeping me steady. I didn’t tremble from fear but interest. I didn’t gasp from terror but attraction.

In the Moroccan sunshine, his skin turned a molten honey while his hair carried nightmares itself. His eyes, with its secrets and hidden windows, were wide and full of dazzling heat.

His head bowed as his hands dragged me forward. Without thinking, my body turned supple, bending into him as my chin tipped up.

Whatever this was, we didn’t choreograph it. Something else did. Something neither of us could ignore.

His hands slipped around my back, bracing me against his body. My belly hit his waistband and my spine arched as he pressed his hardening erection into me.

I didn’t think about where we were or who was watching. Nothing else existed but him and me and whatever this searing connection was.